Asked By
nelson
460 points
N/A
Posted on - 05/21/2011
I have been working online for 1-2 years as a freelancer. I have come across some jobs that either need PDF files to be edited or data collected from them. I having difficulty collecting data from PDF files because one can't edit them or cut and paste data. So, it's become a very time consuming job. What I could have done in 30 minutes takes more than 60 minutes, so its very important  that I find some tool to edit PDF files.
Can anybody help quickly?
Some advice or some reference to any software that I can use to convert or edit PDF files will really help.
A detailed description will be welcomed.
Thanks
Answered By
aush0210
0 points
N/A
#101596
Software for editing PDF Files
Hello,
I saw your post and think I can help. Being a graphic designer myself I have face the same issue in the past. There is an alternative to Acrobat Reader and it's a free program called "PDF Escape". If you only need to edit the text without repositioning the pages this is a great tool; it also lets you edit password-protected PDF documents in the browser. With PDF Escape, you can hide parts of a PDF file using the whiteout tool or add annotations with the help of custom shapes, arrows, text boxes and sticky notes. You can add hyperlinks to other PDF pages / web documents too.
If you like to edit the meta-data associated with a PDF document, check out Becy PDFMetaEdit. It's a free utility that can help you edit details like the PDF document title, author name, creation date, keywords etc. of any PDF file. The tool can also be used for encrypting PDF documents such that only users who know the password can read the contents of your PDF files.
If you want to edit large amounts of text in a PDF file but don't have access to the source documents, you can convert the PDF file into an editable Word document or an Excel spreadsheet depending on the contents of the PDF. Then edit these converted PDFs in Microsoft Office and export the modified files back into PDF format. If your PDF document includes images, charts, tables and other complex formatting try the online PDF to Word converter from BCL Research or the one from NitroPDF.
If you need to replace images on a PDF file, adding signatures, removing blocks of text without breaking the flow of the document, etc. PDF XChange is a free PDF viewer cum editor that you may use for typing text directly on any PDF page. PDF XChange also supports image stamps so you may use the tool for signing a PDF file or for inserting images anywhere on a PDF page.
Then you have Inkscape, a free vector drawing tool (like Adobe Illustrator) that can natively import and export PDF content. With Inkscape, you can select any object on a PDF page (including text, graphics, tables, etc.) and move them to a different location or even remove them permanently from the PDF file. You can also annotate PDF files with Inkscape or draw freehand on a page using the built-in pencil tool.
The next tool in the category of advanced PDF editors is OpenOffice Draw with the PDFImport extension. OpenOffice Draw supports inline editing so you can easily fix typos in a PDF document or make formatting related changes like replacing color, increasing or decreasing the text size, replacing the default font-family, etc. Like Inkscape, the OpenOffice toolbox also includes support for annotations, shapes, images, tables, charts, etc. But here you have more choices and the software also looks less complex.
I hope I have been useful.
Roberta
Answered By
Janine08
5 points
N/A
#101598
Software for editing PDF Files
For all I know, PDF files could not be edited. The possible way to modify the contents of a PDF document is to convert it to appropriate file format like DOC, ODG, RTF or any necessary file format that can be edited. And after converting the modified file, you need to convert it back as an updated PDF file.
Here is the procedure on converting the file and useful tools you can use:
Free tools to edit your PDF files
There are various tools that you can use to convert your PDF files. We highly recommend Oracle PDF import extension for Open Office draw and PDFill. These are free tools for modifying your PDF files and the biggest improvement that gives PDFÂ import extension the advantage on using any other tools is, it is capable of converting almost all PDF file format.
Also, if the PDF has images, it can be converted to vector drawings and best of all is it can be run on almost all platforms. PDFill is very useful on working with PDF form fields and decryption and it normally filling in when the import extension fails.
To be able to modify PDF files, follow the steps below:
1. Download and then launch the Open Office program.
2. Run the PDF import extension.
3. Once you are done with running the import extension, you must run the Open Office Draw.
4. After launching the Open Office Draw, browse to the PDF file that you want to modify and then open it in Open Office Draw.
5. You can now modify text depending on your preferred settings from the opened document by choosing the text you wish to modify. Click on the link below and then place the cursor to the information you want.
6. When done with the changes, click on the link that exports the document as a new PDF file.
However, even if this is one of the best solution on modifying the PDF files, it is still lacking on some capability to modify forms, tables and decryption of the PDF files. You still need to use the PDFill tool to resolve this.
Follow the steps below to use PDFill:
1. Download the PDFill tool and install it on your computer.
2. Run the program and choose PDFill PDF Editor if you wish to modify your PDF fill such as performing other tasks such as editing the PDF header, decryption, merge and more.
3. If you wish to edit a PDF file and you already launched the PDFill PDF Editor then go to the file and then launch a new project and browse to the PDF file you want to modify and execute the changes you want.
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